You wouldn't want to tack the actual quilt or backing to the frame, but you'd tack a sturdy piece of fabric like the ticking in the above mid-20th century of quilters in Lititz, Pennsylvania. The quilt is pinned or basted to the striped ticking.

The Canadian women have wound strips to the frame

to support the quilt, rather than tacking the sturdy cloth to the frame.

These early 20th-century women have tied the

sides of the quilt to the frame with string. It doesn't look too stable,

9 comments:

Oh my, that was a walk down memory lane. I remember my great grandmother's frame with the holes in the wooden frame and she would change the peg position as she was quilting. She did tack it too with little black nails. I've asked her why did she hammered down those funny looking nails and she said "So the quit will behave". Boy! didn't that put a rod in my back and I was on my best behavior for the rest of the day LOL. She passed away in 1975, she was 92 years old. Thanks for the research.

It is interesting how they kept the frames together with clamps, would be nice to have wood that you could change out for different sizes. I have seem threaded frames, you see them a lot with canadian rug hooking.

Lilian Hedley (famous for traditional north country quilting) still uses one of those wooden frames with the pegs for keeping the rolled part of the quilt from unrolling as she works. When she moves on to the next part of the quilt, the pegs come out, the quilt is rolled on and the pegs go back in the next appropriate set of holes. I have photos if you would like to see them

Thanks for this very interesting post. The board with all the fine holes could be bugs holes. There should be a book on the history of quilting and frames. I can see why my mother add leaders to her already leaders on the frames to her quilt. Only you have to be straight as you roll the quilt or the quilt can have problems. The added leader piece on the side helps with longarm quilting. I forget to do it. I do do it I pin each time the leader to the edge and then clamp the clamp and Velcro string to the edge of my HQ16 frames.

I inherited my grandmother's frame like those pictured and still use it! Mom couldn't find the wooden pegs when we cleaned out the old house, so I use C-clamps that my other grandmother used on the corners now. Mom said they did actually tack the lining (backing) fabric to the frame pulling out the tacks as they rolled what had been quilted. AND when using a frame like, those pictured, quilters started at one side and worked toward its opposite, NOT from the center outward. One starts in the middle when using a hoop in the lap. I do have several different lengths so I can do baby quilts with ease or a large quilt.